Whether you're traveling from the couch to the refrigerator, or from your office to the limo to the airport to the rental car to the meeting (yet again), stop by and pick up a Traveling Laugh “to go.” As a seasoned whirligig of a traveler I’ve learned the most important thing I can pack (that cannot be confiscated by a three-year-old or the TSA) is a sense of humor.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Between business and leisure, solo travel and highway boogieing with my spouse, we put a lot of miles on our car this year, including a round-trip journey from the Chicago suburbs to Albuquerque New Mexico. We nearly beat the path between the burbs and our MN hideaway to death. My honey and I journeyed up and down super slabs, pay-for highways and plenty of back roads, including miles of pinging gravel.

Alternative routes due to weather or whim. ("I've never been to Mabel MN. TURN LEFT HERE!")

Up close and personal scenery. (Fall's been glorious!)

Venue/menu choices. (Drive-through or cocktails?)

Unlimited baggage. (To fishing pole or golf clubs, that is the question.)

No rental vehicle snafus. (Let's hear it for an HONEST nonsmoking vehicle!)

No missed connections. (Do I have to count wrong turns?)

The ability to stop and go when we want to.

No running for gates or sitting on the tarmac.

Of course there were drawbacks too:

Couldn't watch a movie. (If I was the driver.)

No call button. (Unless one could count on one's spouse or traveling partner (TP) to pass one something.)

We couldn't change elevation to avoid bad weather. (And bridges can be icy.)

Traffic congestion occasionally played havoc with our schedule. (Especially if we didn't listen to our spouse (TP) and stayed on the main route. The words harassment and neener-neener come to mind.)

We couldn't eavesdrop on conversations around us. (Or get kicked in the back by a kid, unless he was ours, and they're 47 and 42, so no.)

We couldn't stand up and walk around while still "making time." (Cruise control only covers so much.)

Couldn't work on a laptop while you're driving.

Okay, we didn't follow this, but ...
STOP! I gotta get a picture
of THAT!

But one of the most enjoyable benefits, which, to be honest, also occasionally caused a time detriment, was the many unusual and interesting things we followed, as opposed to one of those ongoing and annoying two-hour stares at the crooked part in the back of the guy's head in the airline seat in front of us. You know, the guy who reclines his airline chair up against your knees?

I herewith offer a relaxing visual testimony to a few of our more recent-ish Favorite Follows. Enjoy the ride. Feel the pace. Imagine the fury of wrangling around with a cell phone to capture a moving shot. :)